An Irrevocable Condition
by SouthSideStory
Summary: Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. SasuSaku.
1. Love, Sakura

**Love, Sakura**

Home is not a place you can leave behind; home is a thing you carry with you, as real as the travel pack on your back, and just as heavy.

Sasuke first discovered this when he abandoned Konoha. Only once he was away, surrounded by strangers, did he realize that the lilt of the Hidden Leaf was branded in his voice. At night he would lie on his side and dream of people best forgotten: Iruka-sensei, the Sandaime, the rookies, Naruto and Kakashi and Sakura. (Sakura most of all, but he didn't allow himself to read much into this.) He came to hate those visions worse than his nightmares. It hurt more, for some reason, to see the things he gave up than the things that were taken from him.

And later, as he traveled the world, Sasuke found pieces of home in the most foreign of places. He saw Naruto's spirit and Sakura's kindness in the hospitality of strangers. Bowls of ramen and copies of _Icha Icha _books and cherry blossom trees reminded him of those he had left behind for a second time.

Today he sits at a table in a River Country inn, rereading the last letter Sakura sent him. The paper is worn, the creases softened from many foldings and unfoldings. She wrote to him about the efforts to restore Konoha to its former glory, her work opening a clinic for children, how everything seems to be starting over, rebuilding and remaking, not unlike Sasuke himself. She signed it "Love, Sakura," and now he traces the characters that make up her name.

In his pack there are seventeen letters from Sakura, nine from Naruto, four from Kakashi, and he has read and reread all of them more times than he can count. Naruto's messages are nearly illegible, riddled with grammar mistakes, full of an unfailing optimism. Kakashi's are short, to the point, written in a hurry. But Sakura's letters are something else. Her handwriting is precise and feminine, and he can imagine the care she put into each sentence, can practically see it in every line of ink.

Sasuke is (was) ambidextrous, so he can write well with his right hand, just as fluently and neatly as he could have with his left. It was not his missing arm that made him wary to respond. Still, he wrote back, answered every letter diligently. All but this last, all but the one he holds in his hand now. He received it two weeks ago, when he was helping a family in the Earth Country build a barn.

There are sixteen letters in his pack from Sakura, and every one she signed with her name alone. Not this one, though. This one she signed with ink-and-paper love.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** So this is the first piece in a post-699 series I'm writing about Sasuke's return to Konoha. The summary is a quote from _Giovanni's Room_ by James Baldwin. Also, many thanks to my lovely beta uchihasass for looking over this!


	2. Rebirth

**Rebirth**

The chunin at the gate gapes at Sasuke before letting him inside, and as he walks through the streets, civilians and shinobi alike stare and whisper to one another.

Konoha has changed since he last saw it. Shops and apartments have sprung up all over the place, and the shine of fresh paint is beginning to wear off. There is still a sense of newness about the buildings, an unseasoned quality which reminds Sasuke that this is not the village he once knew.

A chubby Hyuuga child of six or seven runs into him and falls to the ground. Sasuke helps him to his feet, and when the boy sees his face, sees the rinnegan, his blank, pale eyes grow wider. There is already a mark on his smooth forehead, green as grass. Enforced obedience burned into a child's skin.

So some things haven't changed—even if they should.

Sasuke walks on, taking in the elements of the village that are different, that remain the same.

It's awful but true that he's happy the Uchiha compound was destroyed when Pain invaded. All that place held for him were memories of slaughter, of blood and death. Anything sweet that came before (his mother's laughter, his father's rare smile, riding on Itachi's back) was overwhelmed by grief. The compound is gone, new life will be built over the ground where it stood, and Sasuke is glad of it.

He can smell spring in the air: the sharp scent of freshly mown lawns and the wet aroma that follows a good rain. Everywhere he looks he sees greenery and budding flowers. Sasuke plucks a blossom from the low-hanging branch of an apple tree and pockets it, feels the satin softness of a petal between his thumb and forefinger.

"_Sasuke-kun_?"

He turns at the sound of his name and spots Hinata a few paces behind him. She smiles and says, "You're back."

"I am." Then, because he feels he ought to apologize, Sasuke says, "I'm sorry I missed the wedding."

Hinata shrugs. "Don't worry about it. He understood."

This doesn't surprise him. Naruto, for all his thick-headedness, has a knack for knowing Sasuke's own heart before Sasuke himself does. So perhaps his friend could guess why, six months ago, he didn't feel ready to return to the Leaf.

His demons live in Konoha. It is the site of his family's destruction, of many of his greatest mistakes. The source of his nightmares as much as his dreams. He will never love this village the way he once did, before Danzo's orders and Itachi's blade stole Otousan and Okaasan from him. And Sasuke is afraid, too, that coming back will bring out the worst in him. The elders still live, and there is a part of him (larger than he would like to admit) that wants vengeance.

But it isn't hate that brought him home. Seventeen letters drew him across the miles, over deserts and seas and mountains. Caught him by the heart and slowly lured him in.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This story is just too much fun to write! I should have tried a post-699 fic before. Thank you uchihasass for giving this the beta seal of approval. :)


	3. Missing

**Missing**

She hears the news from Moegi: Uchiha Sasuke walked through the Konoha gates no more than an hour ago.

Sakura drops the glass of water she was drinking, hears it shatter against the white tile. She looks down and sees the mess she has made: glass fragments bleeding water all across the hospital's sterile floor.

"I'll clean it up," Moegi says. "You should go."

She has been up all night, and there's still an hour left of her graveyard shift, but Sakura can't find it in herself to care. She thanks Moegi and runs.

She doesn't trust rumors and hear-say, and she fears that this news is wrong. Even so, Sakura can't help but think, _He's come back to us. Come back to me_. First, she speaks to Kakashi and learns that Sasuke is indeed in the village; he already came by the Hokage's office and asked to be reinstated as a Konoha shinobi.

"So he's really here?" Sakura asks.

Kakashi nods. "He's really here."

She goes to Naruto and Hinata's house only to find it empty. Sakura roams the streets, looking for a shock of black hair, a tall silhouette lacking a left arm. Nothing. Now desperate, she even checks the fruit vendors in the market square, thinking he might have stopped to buy tomatoes. _He has to be here somewhere. Konoha is only so big._

Sakura stops, sits on a stone bench, and puts her head in her hands. She's spent so much time waiting for him to come home and _stay_—four years after he abandoned the village, another three while he searched for his redemption—and now that he's finally here she can't even find him. It's fitting, really, because she has been chasing after Sasuke for half her life with no success. Why should today be any different?

She feels a masculine presence settle beside her on the bench, and a moment later she hears him say, "Hello, Sakura."

Without considering the consequences, she sits up and throws her arms around Sasuke, hugs him as fiercely as she can. He smells of pine and woodsmoke and dust, like forests and fire and dirt roads well-traveled. He is impossibly warm and impossibly _here_, and she has never, not once in her life, felt more thankful than she does in this moment.

Slowly, tentatively, Sasuke wraps his right arm around her waist, rests his hand on the small of her back. He buries his face in her hair, and Sakura suddenly wishes that she hadn't spent all night at the hospital. She must look frightful and smell like antiseptics.

They stay like this for a long time, just holding one another, until Sasuke pulls away. She lets go, if reluctantly, and says, "I missed you."

Three little words, meant to encompass the breadth of seven years' loneliness. They don't even come close.

He makes a gesture like he means to cup her cheek, but withdraws his hand before the movement can come to life.

"Did you find it?" Sakura asks. "The peace you were looking for?"

Sasuke looks away, looks toward the horizon, and she can sense before he speaks that he is not satisfied. That whatever he sought remains out of reach.

"I don't know if there's any such thing as peace," he says. "There's the time between wars, like now, but there's still violence, still hate and ugliness. As for me, I think I could wander for a thousand years and never redeem myself."

"Is that why you're here?" Sakura asks, and she can feel the weight of fear settling in her stomach. "Because you've given up?"

"No." Sasuke reaches into his pocket, pulls out a wilting apple blossom and a folded up piece of paper. "This is the last letter you sent me. I've probably read it a dozen times, trying to decide whether or not to come home."

"Why did you?" Sakura's breath seems to be caught somewhere near her heart.

He opens the letter, folds it in half, opens it again. "Because you're important to me. Because I've missed you too. Because I'm tired of running away from the people who love me."

"So you're staying?" Sakura asks. "You're back for good?"

It's a subtle expression, and anyone who didn't know him might miss it, but Sasuke smiles when he says, "I'm home."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Thank you uchihasass for sqeeing over this piece and giving me some confidence in it. I really appreciate everyone who leaves a review, favorites, or follows. I hope you guys enjoy this one!


	4. Arrangements

**Arrangements**

Sakura's apartment is small but tidy, and Sasuke gets the feeling that it is little lived in. Perhaps because the twelve-year-old girl he once knew was nothing if not sentimental, he had expected her flat to have a more personal touch. Then again, he supposes that between missions and hospital shifts she has precious few hours to spend at home.

"I'll take the couch," Sakura says. "You can have the bed."

Sasuke sets his pack on the floor beside the doorway. "I'm not kicking you out of your own room."

Sakura sighs, runs a hand through her short hair, and says,"You're not kicking me out. I'm offering it to you because you're a guest."

He glares at her. "Don't be stubborn."

She glares right back. "Don't be an ass."

Then Sakura smiles at him, walks into her little kitchen, and asks, voice cheerful, "Do you want anything to drink?"

Her moods are mercurial, Sasuke knows that, but sometimes her quick shifts in temperament throw him. "I'm not thirsty," he says, "but I would like a shower."

"Okay. Just go down the hall, and the bathroom will be on your left."

Sasuke runs the water as hot as it will go, steps into the shower, and just stands under the scalding spray for a full five minutes. He reaches for Sakura's shampoo (vanilla-something scented) and washes his hair. A thing that was much easier with two hands, but after three years, he has mastered all the simple, everyday tasks like this.

When he steps out of the shower, he finds clean clothes sitting on the counter. For a moment Sasuke is simply thankful for Sakura's thoughtfulness, because his travel clothes are worn, torn, and filthy. But then he picks up the plain, black T-shirt and it hits him that she must have just had these laying around. A _man's _clothes, in her apartment. He doesn't dress, just wraps a towel around his waist, and goes to the living room, where she's sitting, curled up in an armchair, reading a tome too thick for Sasuke to ever consider picking up.

She looks at him and flushes a pink that could rival her hair.

"Where did you get this?" he asks, holding out the shirt.

Sakura frowns, closes her book. "Shikamaru was between places for a week or so, and I let him stay with me. He left some of his clothes here, and I never remembered to give them back."

He wants to believe her, but Sasuke is mistrustful by nature, and three years is a long time to wait for someone.

She rolls her eyes. "Do you really think that if I was screwing somebody and trying to hide it that I'd be stupid enough to give you his clothes?"

"Of course not," he says.

Sakura stands, walks over to him, and reaches up to cradle his face. Sasuke feels suddenly mindful of his near-nakedness, but it's an anticipatory sort of awareness. Like he's waiting for something significant to happen. And Sakura isn't unaffected, if her blush is anything to go by.

"I love you," she says, and there's such a softness to her smile that she almost looks sad. "Only you, Sasuke. Nobody else."

Her hands drop to his shoulders, and her gaze lowers to his bare chest. Then she takes a breath, steps back, away from him.

After he dresses, Sasuke goes back to the living room, only to find Sakura in pajamas, stretched out on the couch with a blanket.

"I know you're not planning to stay there."

"I am actually," she says, in the same lofty tone she used to employ when speaking down to Naruto.

"You're not sleeping on the couch," Sasuke says.

She shrugs and asks, "What are you gonna do about it?"

Sakura looks at him, all smug defiance, confident in her victory.

"Sometimes you really are annoying."

If he had two arms, he would scoop her up bridal-style and carry her to the bedroom. But he doesn't, so there's no use considering it.

Later, he lies awake in Sakura's bed, unable to sleep because the pillow smells like her hair, and he can't stop thinking about how good it felt to have her hands on his body. To hear her say she loves him.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** SS living together is the stuff my dreams are made of, in case you couldn't tell. ;) Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing, favoriting, and following. I really appreciate it. I also appreciate my beta, uchihsass, who looked over this and helped me straighten out my title for this part.


	5. Tsukuyomi

**Tsukuyomi**

Hospital hours have wrecked her sleep schedule, and so Sakura is up at two o'clock in the morning, drinking a cup of hot cocoa, a week after Sasuke's return to Konoha. He convinced her to take turns sleeping in the bed, and tonight she's on the couch again. She doesn't mind it. With a jounin's earnings she was finally able to buy comfortable, matching furniture for her living room.

_Maybe I should just go to the hospital and pick up a shift. _

Ino would chide her for working too hard (and then probably insult her forehead in the same breath), but she's awake and restless and tired of reading medical texts. She's on the verge of getting up and dressing when she hears Sasuke shouting in his sleep.

_Oh no._

She hurries to her bedroom and finds him shaking, sobbing, still trapped in whatever nightmare has visited him. Gently, she shakes him and says his name until he wakes up. Sasuke looks all around the room, like he's trying to reorient himself. He's breathing in too fast, gasping, still crying.

"It's over," Sakura says. "You're here with me, you're safe."

Sasuke closes his eyes, takes a few steadying breaths, and wipes at his face. He sits up slowly and says, "Sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." She moves closer, cups his cheek with her hand. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." He wraps his arm around her, pulls her into his embrace, as if she's the one who needs comfort. "It was just the same old nightmare: Itachi and our parents," he says, almost dismissively, but the break in his voice gives him away.

"I can't imagine that's easy to relive, no matter how many times you've dreamed it." Sakura rests against his chest, lets him rub soothing circles on her back.

"My nightmares were always worse in Konoha," Sasuke says. "I didn't notice it until I became a genin and went on long missions outside the village. I always slept better away from home, but the moment I got back I'd start having the dreams again."

She hates to hear this, that returning to Konoha is a burden to him. That the village she so loves brings Sasuke pain. (And there's a small, sad, selfish fear that enough nights like this one will drive him away again.)

He lets her go, pulls away, but when she makes to leave, Sasuke catches her hand and says, "Stay."

"You—you want me to sleep here?" Sakura asks.

In answer, he pulls her down with him, so that they're lying together, tangled on the bed.

Sakura falls asleep wrapped up with the man she loves, and in the morning she wakes to golden sunlight and Sasuke. He's just looking at her, eyes soft, and when she yawns he smiles, almost too gently to notice. Sleep-tousled hair makes him look younger, less like the man she barely knows and more like the boy she fell in love with.

"What are you doing today?" Sasuke asks.

"I've only got a short shift at the children's clinic. Ten to six. What about you?"

"Training with Naruto, since Kakashi won't let me take missions yet." He says this acidly, as if the Hokage is out to punish him.

"It's standard protocol for reinstating a shinobi. Six weeks will fly by, you'll see."

"Until I go on a mission, I don't get paid. If I don't get paid I can't look for an apartment. Or buy my own things."

Feeling playful, she asks, "Too good for Shikamaru's hand-me-downs, are you?"

"I'm bound to run into him eventually," Sasuke says dryly, "and he might have something to say about me stealing his clothes."

She laughs, and hugs him, and revels in the fact that he is here to stay, finally willing to accept the love she wants to give.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** All the lovely reviews and favorites/follows are so appreciated guys. And thank you to uchihasass for her input on this chapter! :)


	6. Where the Heart Is

**Where the Heart Is**

Home, for Sakura, used to be the house she grew up in, but Pain's invasion saw to its destruction. After the war, she came to see Konoha itself, even in its new incarnation, as the place where she could always come back to. But now she wonders whether _home_ can be confined to anything as simple as buildings and the land they stand on. Maybe it's something more, bound up in the collective affection of the people she cares for. Or rooted in her love for an itinerant man, wherever it takes her.

Sakura can't be sure; she's a fighter, not a philosopher, no matter how much she enjoys questioning things most people never bother to ask after.

She rests her head on Sasuke's shoulder. "What do you think makes a home?"

They're lying together in bed, both too wakeful to sleep. Sakura traces the same character again and again across the hard plane of his bare chest: _mine, mine, mine_.

"I don't know," Sasuke says, "but you can't get rid of it."

She frowns and asks, "What do you mean 'can't get rid of it'? Like it's a bad thing?"

He sighs. "I wanted, for a long time, to forget you and Naruto and the rest of Konoha. To stop caring altogether. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do it. Not really."

"Not even when you tried to kill me?" Sakura asks, voice carefully light.

"You tried to kill me too," he reminds her. "Did it mean you'd stopped loving me?"

"No, of course not," she says.

"Well, there's your answer." He plays with her hair. "I am sorry about that, Sakura. If I could take it back, I would."

They lie in silence for moments that stretch into minutes, until she finally finds the courage to ask a question she hopes she already knows the answer to: "Do you love me, Sasuke?"

He's quiet for one heartbeat, two, then he says, "When we were still at the Academy, do you remember how a rumor went around that I liked girls with long hair?"

"Yes," Sakura says, a little testily, because he isn't answering her question.

"Well that rumor started because I was stupid enough to tell Kiba that I thought your hair was pretty. I was talking about the color, but I guess he thought I meant the length, and then he opened his fat mouth and told everybody I had a thing for long-haired girls."

She can't help it, she smiles. "You liked my pink hair?"

"I did. I always thought you were beautiful. And then later, after we were teammates, I started to feel more for you. Back then I didn't know what to do with those feelings. Now I do, Sakura." He kisses the top of her head. "I love you, like you love me, but I haven't done a very good job of letting you know it. I'll do better. I promise."

Sakura wipes away her tears and props herself up on an elbow. She cups his cheek, turns his face toward her, and looks right into his mismatched eyes when she says, "I love you, too. I love you so much, Sasuke."

He pulls her down, so that she's lying flat against his chest, and kisses her. It's gentle, hesitant even, just the barest brushing of lips. His first, she knows, and hers too, but it couldn't be more perfect.

Much later, after they've kissed one another breathless, Sasuke says, "I want to do this every day for the rest of my life."

He speaks with such confidence. As if a future together is an inevitability he craves.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This is for timms7001, who donated toward the Naruto for Nepal project to see the next chapter of this fic. Thank you so much for your contribution, and I hope you enjoy the new installment!

For those who are unfamiliar with the project this chapter is a part of, the amazing uchihasass began Naruto for Nepal to bring together Naruto fans to raise money and awareness for Nepal in wake of the earthquakes that have devastated her home country. This is an absolutely incredible effort, one I am happy to be a small part of.

Also, I've got to give credit where credit is due. Sasuke's conversation with Sakura about her hair was 100% inspired by a headcanon of hachina1's over at tumblr.


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